[MarkWarner]

Last week's book got a bemused & befuddled thumbs up from the reading group. This was not entirely due to our age, or a glass too many over Christmas. If you have not yet read Weird Comics #13, do so. I promise you'll have great, but highly confused fun!

Looking at the list of books we have read I noticed that we really ought to read another "non-fiction" one. So, I thought to help further my education  we could go for 48 Famous Americans published by J.C. Penney Company https://comicbookplus.com/?dlid=49463. As we are still in the festive season you can pick a character or a few or the whole book!

Hope you are all had a good Christmas and wishing you a Happy New Year!

[crashryan]

Kind of a boring read, but inoffensive. When you sum up a famous person's life in five panels there's little opportunity to develop any kind of narrative.

The choice of people is interesting. Was P. T. Barnum really as significant as Franklin D. Roosevelt? I notice  the roster features several people (e.g. Cordell Hull and Gen. William Knudsen) who were important figures during WWII but later proved to be historical footnotes. This makes sense, I guess, given that the War had ended only a couple of years earlier. Of course it's coincidence that J.C. Penney made it into the list of great Americans.

Speaking of J.C. Penney, I see that J.C. Penney/Edwin H. Stroh also released a comic describing the 48 states at this time. I couldn't find information about either Stroh or "Jensen Comic Art" online.

The Kirby/Simon art is like the stories, competent but unexciting.

[SuperScrounge]

Interesting. Still reducing some people's accomplishments to one page can do them a disservice whereas others only have the one thing (apparently) that puts them on the list.

Also one wonders at the standards for inclusion, I laughed when I saw J.C. Penny included, "Gee, I wonder how he merited inclusion in a J.C. Penny giveaway?"  (That being said I felt others were less deserving.)

On the other hand listing the people by alphabetical order creates some oddness in comparing what made them great, warriors, social workers, writers, artists, politicians. One wonders if breaking them up into categories would have worked better.

The accuracy of some of these entries is questionable. The Audobon entry makes it seem like he drew only from living models, when in fact he shot some birds and posed them. Revere's entry ignores the other two men on the midnight ride. Betsy Ross creating the flag is a myth.

Still, a nice little giveaway that probably got used when schoolkids needed to write a report on someone. 

[Morgus]

did this all start out as a collection of one pagers that Simon and Kirby had hanging around, and then maybe topped off for this issue?  You have to wonder. Read about 12 or so...found a couple of facts I didn't know..the  pictures that lead each bio were better then the portraits on the front...not bad...

[narfstar]

I can't see buying this comic to read. It would be like a reference book on the shelf. Pull it down to check on someone of interest. Otherwise very boring. Thinking about it in terms of a giveaway though it was a good idea. Parents would think it a good thing for their kids even if the kids never read it. Without the internet of TV this may have been something some kids referred to. It seems to be readily available so they must have given out quite a few.

[MarkWarner]

Well this was totally my choice, as I thought it might further my education about America. For those of you not aware, for a great many years I have attempted to get the opportunity to swear allegiance to the flag. But Uncle Sam has thwarted all my attempts to do so.

I am not going to go through all 48 people; as they just have a page each this is really little more than a roll call. One thing that struck me is that a few were born around the 1870's and still alive (eg: Orville Wright) when this book was published. We are all getting older I guess.

I won't take issue with a few people whose biogs I disagreed with. BUT I tell you now the greatest American (so far) is Roosevelt (of the FDR variety). He is the clear winner in my opinion. Oh and also way too contemporary to have made this book, but Jimmy Carter is the greatest ex-president.

Verdict: A hit. A page per person made it very light and easy read.

[narfstar]

Wow, myself and most of my friends and lots and lots of others consider Carter the second worst President after Obama.

[bowers]

This one was a nice little treat. Obviously not bios in depth, but it could have inspired young readers to read more about these important people. And, the price was right! Thumbs up from me. Cheers, Bowers

[MarkWarner]

Jim I said ex-president Meaning what he has done after office ... FDR is the best president

[narfstar]

I will agree that Carter has done a lot of good after leaving office

[josemas]

Wikepedia has a good piece on the ratings of the presidents.  Especially interesting is their chart of scholar surveys from 1948-2015.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_rankings_of_Presidents_of_the_United_States

The early founding father presidents and their immediate successors were all good to great but after Andrew Jackson the 19th century presidents were mostly poor to mediocre with presidents like Lincoln and the continually under-rated James Polk standing out like beacons of light.
Things picked up a lot in the twentieth century with Teddy Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson and then later Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman and Dwight Eisenhower all being top tier presidents.

[narfstar]

Interesting polls. Of course they are opinion but still interesting. Obvious when looking at the liberal vs conservative poll that puts Carter either in the top or bottom. Calvin Coolidge would have had this country in continued black ink instead of red if his work was continued. But most people do not even know anything about him.

[josemas]

The polls I give most credence to are those of historians and scholars because even though they give opinions they are educated opinions.

Most people are not that up on their history and except for the most recent presidents they could probably only name a few let alone know much about them.

Coolidge probably gets his rating because, despite having balanced budgets, many blame his domestic policies for being factors that helped bring on the Great Depression.  His foreign policy achievements also seem slight in hindsight.  Although being a man of integrity he seemed to have no particular vision of where he wanted the country to go.